{"id":527341,"date":"2026-03-08T19:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527341\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:34:20","slug":"india-retain-t20-world-cup-as-samson-and-bumrah-inspire-rout-of-new-zealand-t20-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527341\/","title":{"rendered":"India retain T20 World Cup as Samson and Bumrah inspire rout of New Zealand | T20 World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

It might not have been the thriller neutrals wanted, but it was everything India desired. They became the first men\u2019s team to defend the T20 World Cup<\/a> and the first side to win it at home, after drowning New\u00a0\u00adZealand in a deluge of runs in front of 100,000 giddy and almost universally blue\u2011clad supporters.<\/p>\n

New Zealand looked forlorn while conceding 255 and wretched when attempting to chase it, and after meandering through much of their innings with defeat already a certainty they were still 96 behind when it ended. They have now reached four World\u00a0Cup finals of various hues since 2015 and lost them all, plus the \u00adChampions Trophy last year to boot.<\/p>\n

You know it is absolutely, definitely going to be your day when a fielder drops a catch while blinded and still the ball refuses to come to earth. It was Ishan Kishan who pulled off the party trick, sprinting towards the ball, launching himself forward and collecting the catch \u2013 only for the impact of his landing to send it bouncing out of his hands, while his cap simultaneously slipped off his head and settled over his eyes. Somehow the ball lodged between his chin and an arm, and thus ended Rachin Ravindra\u2019s brief innings. New\u00a0Zealand\u2019s reply was just 19 balls old, they were already two down, and\u00a0the only thing preventing the party from starting was the fact it had been under way for about five hours.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s Sanju Samson plays a shot during his innings of 89 runs off 46 balls. Photograph: Ajit Solanki\/AP<\/p>\n

The tournament co-hosts were arguably making themselves hostages to fortune when they unveiled as the tournament anthem a song called Feel the Thrill, which is based around the repeated lyric: \u201cThis is our year.\u201d But it has come to pass. This was their tournament, played (largely) in front of their fans, and they were not to be denied.<\/p>\n

There were four occasions at this World Cup when a team scored more than 250 runs and India were responsible for three of them. Their total here was one fewer than they scored against Zimbabwe in the Super\u00a08s stage and two more than they got against England in the semi\u2011finals, but more extraordinary than its size was the fact that it was a bit of a disappointment.<\/p>\n

They took a couple of overs to play themselves in, during which neither of their openers appeared at all inclined to take any risks. And then\u00a0they switched gears, accele\u00adrating in an instant from pootle to brutal. By the end of the sixth over they were 92 without loss and had equalled the highest powerplay score in World Cup history.<\/p>\n

Jacob Duffy, who returned to the team having not featured at all since the end of the opening group stage, saw his first over go for 15. Lockie \u00adFerguson bowled three wides and went for 24; Matt Henry bowled four wides and went for 21, and so, for a while, it continued.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s top three batters all cantered to half-centuries, Abhishek Sharma first to the mark off 18 balls, though just moments later he edged Ravindra\u2019s first delivery of the night into Tim Seifert\u2019s gloves. Sanju \u00adSamson\u2019s took a positively pedestrian 33, and Kishan got there in 23. By the time the teams took drinks after the 14th over, with India 191 for one and Samson having \u00addeposited each of the last three balls into the stands, thoughts had turned to the possibility of a score in excess of the\u00a0fabled 300.<\/p>\n

The brief break stalled India\u2019s momentum, though, and in the following five overs there were two boundaries and four wickets. Amid the chaos, and as if to emphasise the\u00a0bewildering \u00adunpredictability of this format, Jimmy Neesham bowled a poor over that brought one run and\u00a0three\u00a0\u00adwickets.<\/p>\n

Samson had reached 89 off 46 when he lifted a full toss down the ground and was caught at long\u2011on. Another full toss brought another catch at long-on, Kishan having scored 54 off 25. Then Neesham bowled short and wide to Suryakumar Yadav, who lifted the ball extravagantly over\u00a0his\u00a0shoulder to deep backward square leg, where Ravindra took a superb diving catch.<\/p>\n

India fans celebrate a boundary during the T20 World Cup final. Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis\/Reuters<\/p>\n

From there \u00adscoring slowed for a while, ending when \u00adShivam Dube took his score from two off two at the\u00a0start of the final over to 26 off eight at its end.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s innings was \u00aduncannily \u00adsimilar to their effort in the semi\u2011final, and so New Zealand\u2019s also had to be: their openers had scored 158 between them in their \u00advictory against South Africa, Finn Allen a ludicrous 33-ball hundred, and with that kind of behaviour \u00adanything is possible. But Allen was out in the third over having scored only nine and their next three \u00adbatters equalled that \u00admeagre score between\u00a0them.<\/p>\n

With that going on around him Seifert\u2019s spirited half-century was destined for irrelevance, as were a couple of terrible drops by Dube and Hardik Pandya. Bumrah, extraordinary as ever, took three wickets with beautiful slow yorkers and was named man of the match. This was a poor final, but these are great champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It might not have been the thriller neutrals wanted, but it was everything India desired. They became the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-527341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}